


Seaweed

by SilverWing15



Series: Wave hello, wave goodbye (It means seaweed either way) [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angus Whump, Angus is Winter, Angus is a merboy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Hurt Angus, Hurt/Comfort, IPRE Crew - Freeform, It is long and angsty, Smart Angus McDonald, Sometimes a family is a bunch of ocean researchers and their merboy son, Tw amputation, Whump, Winter: a dolphin's tale, i don't know what happened, this was supposed to be short and fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-15 21:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15421698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverWing15/pseuds/SilverWing15
Summary: “Land-Walker things are dangerous.” His grandfather had said. “They are beautiful, and sometimes even useful, but never forget that they are dangerous, too.”Or: The mer Angus AU that literally one person wanted and that person was me.WARNINGS: there is some amputation stuff here and it gets kinda dark. It ends happy, I promise but it my angst instincts kicked in.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short, fluffy, Taako and Angus story. It is exactly none of those things. It's nearly 16,000 words of mostly pure angst and Taako shows up like...twice. Magnus got me with his rustic hospitality and I'm pretty sure he has advantage when dealing with aquatic creatures so I guess this is A Mango&Ango show. *shrug* 
> 
> This story is complete and I'll probably upload chapters once every two/three days until I get the companion piece done. Hope you all enjoy!

“ _Land-Walker things are dangerous.”_ His grandfather had said. “ _They are beautiful, and sometimes even useful, but never forget that they are dangerous, too.”_

Angus sputters as another wave washes over him. It is hard to move right with the netting tangled around his tail and one arm. He uses his free hand to push himself back above the waves, but his muscles ache and he doesn't get as far up as he would like to. The thin fibers of the net dig into his skin and blood clouds the water.

He keens high in his throat, but there is no one left to answer. His grandfather is dead, and the rest of the pod has left him behind. Left him here, tangled in this net, to die. Another wave washes over him. The tide is coming in and he is already tired. He is going to drown.

He forces his arm to push him up, to get his head up above the water again. He barely gets his nose above the waves to catch a breath. Maybe it's his last one. The net is tangled around the coral, holding him down.

He wishes he'd never seen the stupid net in the first place. He wishes he'd stayed away from it like the rest of the pod. He thought that he could maybe use it to catch fish, the way the Land-Walkers did. The only thing he'd caught was himself and the coral. And now he's going to die.

He calls again, but of course, no one answers. A shudder runs through his body. He doesn't want to be alone, he wants to swim in the middle of the pod, even though most of them don't like him all that much. He wants to sleep surrounded by the others, to be brushed and buffeted and teased even though sometimes it actually hurts instead of just being for fun.

He tries to rise to the surface again, but the tide has risen too far, his arm is too weak. He calls again, but it is quiet, feeble, the brightly colored reef fish drift around him as he sinks. He can hold his breath for awhile, but it's only prolonging the inevitable. He can't hold it long enough to outlast the tide. The coral scratches at his skin as he sinks to the bottom but he can't bring himself to care.

He stares up at the patterns of light refracting through the water. He and his grandfather used to do this together. Just sit quietly and watch the sunlight catch the waves. He can do it now, that's all he needs to focus on, just watch the patterns. Make pictures and stories and imagine a better place to be.

There is a low humming vibrating through the water. Like a mother calling her children. Angus chirps reply. Maybe the Sea Mother is real after all. Maybe she's come for him already.

A shadow looms over him, sleek and strange. Something on the surface of the water, not a bird, it is far, far too big. It stops and the humming stops with it. Angus chirps again, more frantically. _I'm here, I'm here. Please don't leave me! I'm here!_

Something tugs on the net, it digs into his fin so deeply he gasps and water floods his lungs.

It _hurts_.

He's lived his entire life in the ocean, he knows that breathing water hurts, but this is so much worse than the times he's gotten seawater in his nose. It burns down his throat and into his chest and he can't stop himself from coughing automatically, but that means he just pulls more seawater into his lungs. He can't control his body, it is turning against him, killing him with the instincts that are supposed to keep him alive.

Another tug on the net, more blood in the water, more water in his lungs.

He's dying.

He's _drowning._

And then he's not. Then he's above the water, then there's cold ocean wind flowing around him. There's _air_. He sucks it in and that hurts almost as much as breathing water but he doesn't care. He's not drowning, he's not dying. He's breathing in the salty air, he's listening to the voices shouting around him.

Voices?

It isn't his pod, they're shouting in a weird short way. Like the cries of seabirds. There's hands and voices and faces and he doesn't recognize any of them. _Who are you ?_ He wants to ask, but he can't make himself stop gasping long enough to ask. One of the voices rises over the rest of them and Angus turns to it automatically.

There is a man, a Land-Walker man with facial hair and clothing and _legs._ He's standing on those legs, standing over Angus, looking down at him with his Land-Walker eyes and making Land-Walker sounds with his Land-Walker mouth and he's a _Land-Walker_.

Angus screams.

He tries to push himself away, but one arm is weak with exhaustion and the other one is tangled in the net still and the ground (he's on solid ground, they pulled him out of the sea, out of safety, out of escape) is slick with water. He thrashes, trying to swim even though that's stupid because he isn't in the water anymore.

The voices rise up again, like gulls that have found a school of fish. Angus calls again, louder higher, even though there's no way his pod will answer. He doesn't want this to happen, he doesn't want to be alone while it does.

His tail bangs into the walls, into the Land-Walker's legs and one of them slips on the water and falls. The voices are shouting and then there's hands on him, there's a body pinning him down. The Land-Walker is heavy and strong and Angus can't throw him off. He's too tired, too scared.

He's shaking, from fear and from cold. The ocean wind he was so happy to feel is bitingly cold above the waves. The Land-Walker is warm though, hot, even. Like rocks warmed by the sun, so different from the other members of his pod.

The voices have died down, now, he realizes, no longer high and harsh like the cries of gulls. Now they're low and quiet, but they still have that odd clipped cadence to them. They bite off the sounds too soon, their tone doesn't change as they speak. It is utterly alien.

The Land-Walker pinning him down speaks, his voice vibrates through Angus' body and he flinches. He's almost caught his breath now, he should be trying to escape, trying to throw this Land-Walker off of himself. He can't seem to make himself move though. He's just laying here, breathing hard even though it hurts, he can't even make his fingers twitch. All he can do is lay here while the Land-Walkers talk in their strange clipped language, move their hands shift their feet.

The one pinning him down makes a sound, a low hissing _shhh._ Like he's angry, but he doesn't do anything more than give that warning. Angus realizes that he's making a sound. A low keening chirrup.

 _Don't hurt me, I'm little._ He is saying, the way he did when the older pups played too rough. Like this is some game the Land-Walkers are playing. Like they'll stop and let him go if he just asks them.

The one pinning him down makes the warning _shh_ again and Angus makes himself stop. He somehow makes his free arm pull back to his chest and his fingers curl loosely at his own throat. It still hurts and he wishes he could stop breathing so hard.

The Land-Walkers are speaking lowly now, so quiet he almost can't hear them. Some are speaking in the same angry, hissing way that the one holding him down is. Their hands flail in strange, meaningless ways, not the smooth, distinct ways of the pod. The one holding him down doesn't gesture, only speaks in that low voice. He has facial hair too, not on his lip like the smallest Land-Walker does, but on the sides of his face.

If this were any other situation, Angus thinks that he would be excited to see Land-Walkers so close. He's only heard descriptions of them before, only seen the things they've left behind.

He wishes he'd never even heard of them now. He wishes he could be safe with the pod, even if they played rough, even if they made him sleep at the edges because he wasn't strong enough to force his way to the middle.

His mind is wandering, he realizes. It wants to think about other things, not about how close he came to drowning, not about how close he is to death even now. He still can't make himself move, his muscles are stiff and aching, his tail stings with every breath.

The Land-Walker sitting on him shifts and Angus knows that this is his chance, he should twist and buck and throw the Land-Walker off of himself. Should take this window to dive back into the ocean, even drowning would be better than whatever the Land-Walkers have planned. He doesn't move though.

He stares at his arm, willing it to push him up, he tells his tail to thrash. Neither of them move. He is paralyzed by fear, he can't do anything but sit here while the Land-Walker cautiously shifts his hold.

Angus' eyes are unfocused and the world is painted in soft blurs. A strange feeling steals over him, not calm, he doesn't think that he will ever calm down again, if he survives. But the world seems further away, the things going on seem to matter less. He thinks that he might faint, if this goes on much longer, but he doesn't. He just floats, like a newborn pup in the shallow tide pools.

The Land-Walker with the hair on his cheeks, the one who'd hissed warning to him when he called, the one who'd held him down until he'd stopped thrashing is speaking again. His voice is low and rough, like gravel.

The other's break off their own discussion and come closer. Angus watches their feet, the strange way they move. They don't walk like seabirds, for all that they talk like them. They come closer and it should make him panic all over again, but he is still in that strange, distant place. It is easier to lay here on the strange, too smooth, ground than it is to try and fight against them. They keep winning anyway.

The small one with the hair on his lip motions to the one with the hair on his cheeks and the weight is slowly lifted from Angus. The cheek-hair man keeps his hands on Angus' shoulders, but they are barely pressing down now. Angus watches the ground tilt with the motion of the waves. There is blood in the water on around him, he watches the red stains swirl and diffuse in strange patterns.

The voices say quiet, but he thinks there's a thread of urgency in them now. The small one is speaking again, his voice is even more clipped and his gestures are shorter now, almost like real words, simple words, though. He points to a few of the Land-Walkers, and they move as he does. Is he the pod leader, then?

Do Land-Walkers have pods?

The cheek-hair Land-Walker moves when the lip-hair Land-Walker directs him, his hands shift on Angus' shoulders. Tugging him, moving him. Angus' tail twitches, but it would be so much work to make a fuss now. He is so very tired. He lets the Land-Walkers do with him as they will, their voices wash over him like ocean waves, their hands keep touching him and he keeps twitching, but doing much more than that seems pointless. He can't stop them anyway.

They tug on the net and it hurts enough to drag him back from the strange drifting place. Angus shakes his head and tries to pull away, but the cheek-hair Land-Walker is still holding him. He tries to say _stop it that hurts me._ But the Land-Walker hisses warning again and holds him tighter.

The net is lifting away now, though, he realizes. The Land-Walkers are cutting it away, and even though it makes his heart beat faster to see the knives in their hands so close to his skin, they do not cut him. He watches the netting come away easily beneath their hands and he wonders if they mean to hurt him at all.

Is that why the cheek-hair one is hissing at him, so that he doesn't struggle and accidentally cut himself? Are they trying to help him? Not hurt? It hurts when they tug on the net, of course, but they themselves aren't causing any harm to him. He makes a questioning chirp at the cheek-hair man, and tries to raise his free hand to ask a question.

The cheek-hair man hisses again and catches his wrist. He pulls Angus' hand back against his chest and then says something to the cutting Land-Walkers. They pause their work and the cheek-hair man shifts so that he is sitting behind Angus, his chest pressed against the fin on Angus' back. It isn't comfortable, really, but it allows Angus to watch the cutting Land-Walkers while they work.

There is already a little pile of netting beside them, stained with blood. His stomach churns and he looks away from it. Looking at his tail isn't much better, he's covered in scratches and there is blood sluggishly dripping from too many places. He looks at the cutting Land-Walkers instead.

There are two of them, working quickly and carefully, murmuring to each other as their knives flash in the sun. One of them is small and light and her hair is long and golden. The other one is male, built in a stocky, solid way with some strange..thing on his face holding little bits of glass in front of his eyes. They are both wearing red jackets.

The woman looks up at sees him watching her. She says something in the strange clipped language of the Land-Walkers, but her hands don't move. Angus tries to ask a question, but the cheek-hair Land-Walker grabs his hand again and pulls it to his chest. The cheek-hair Land-Walker says something in his rumbling voice and the cutting Land-Walker replies and then gets back to work.

The other cutting Land-Walker tugs on the net and Angus gasps as a sharp stab of pain sears up his tail all the way from the tip of his flluke. A high sound escapes his throat and he reflexively pulls his tail away from their hands.

The cheek-hair Land-Walker is hissing warning again but Angus ignores him. He wiggles his other arm out of the net and tries to pry his wrist free. Moving hurts, but he can't make himself stop now. There's a long, confusing moment where he is trying to thrash free again, and the Land-Walkers are trying to stop him and everything is noise and pain and then the cheek-hair Land-Walker has both of his arms wrapped around Angus' torso and he's hissing and speaking in his low growly voice.

Angus gets tired again before he's even close to escaping, in fact, now he's even further from escaping because the cheek-hair man is holding him even tighter than before. He keeps hissing, and Angus remembers that the Land-Walkers are probably trying to help. They want him to stay still so they don't hurt him more on accident.

At least he hopes so.

The cheek-hair Land-Walker is crooning now, Angus realizes, like a mother to her new pup, only much, much deeper. His arms are wrapped around Angus like a hug, almost and it's been so long since anyone hugged him. He didn't realize just how lonely he was, shunned by the pod with his grandfather dead and his parents missing.

He turns his head and hides his face in the strange material of the cheek-hair Land-Walker's clothes. He can hear his heart, it beats a strange tempo, but it is still a heartbeat, and Angus matches his breathing to it. The cheek-hair Land-Walker is hissing again, but Angus thinks maybe it isn't just a general warning. Maybe it means hold still.

He keeps his face buried in the cheek-hair man's jacket, it is dark and safe in there. There is the occasional tug and pain at his tail, but it is easier to bury himself further in the man's jacket than it is to fight. Eventually, the tugging and cutting stops and the Land-Walker's are speaking around him again. Their voices are low and quiet now, quieter than they've been before.

He lets the sound wash over him, like sea waves, like bird calls, meaningless, but comforting. It means he isn't alone, there is something else living, moving, existing nearby. He feels himself drifting closer to sleep and he can't think of a compelling enough reason to hold back.

***

He wakes when cold air washes him and for a moment, he thinks it is the other members of the pod. They like to splash him while he tries to sleep, sometimes they even push him under. He whines at them to leave him alone and strange voices answer him.

Not his pod-mates. Not even other mers.

Angus opens his eyes, but the world is dark, there is faint, red tinged light, but he can't see anything. His whole body aches, his tail feels like it's been shredded and his throat isn't any better. He calls for someone, anyone to make the pain stop, but of course, no one answers.

No one but the Land-Walkers who maybe possibly rescued him. They're making the _hold still_ hiss again and Angus makes himself obey. They haven't really hurt him yet, not intentionally at least and he wants to be able to trust them.

Their voices murmur around him, hands occasionally brush against his skin, warm and gentle. He hears the gravely voice of the cheek-hair man, and the high voice of the lip-hair pod leader and the woman who had cut away the net. There are others as well, but he can't imagine faces to go with them.

The air smells funny, the salty scent of the ocean is faint, now, replaced by something harsh. Angus wrinkles his nose against it. Sounds echo in a strange way, like they're in a cave and he can't hear the wash of the ocean waves.

He makes a questioning sound, but no one answers. There is an odd shuddery sound and a hand touches his forehead. The Land-Walker makes the _hold still_ sound again and there are hands holding his arm away from his body. They tie something around his arm, too tight. He frowns and tries to pull away but they keep making the _hold still_ sound and they won't let him take his arm back.

There is a hand on his head, half petting his hair, half holding him down and he can't decide which it is doing more. If it's holding him down then he thinks that he should struggle, but the fingers are also shifting in a sort of nice way so maybe it's just a Land-Walker thing.

The hands on his arm are poking around now, tracing something in his arm. There is a voice, even lower and gruffer than the cheek-hair Land-Walker's speaking. The Cheek-hair Land-Walker responds and Angus realizes that he is the one holding him.

He flexes his fluke, a habitual motion that he's done so many times before, but this time it sends a fresh stab of agony up his spine. He gasps and flinches and the Land-Walkers are making more urgent sounds now, telling him to hold still even though his instincts tell him to move _away_ from the pain. But the pain is in his tail and he can't leave that behind.

Breathing hard, he tries to hold still and the pain does fade to a dull ache. The hands on his arm are gripping more firmly now, and he doesn't think he could jerk his arm away if he needed to. It makes him nervous and he tugs experimentally at the grip.

The gruffer voice barks something and another hand wraps around Angus' wrist, pinning it to the ground. He whines complaint and tugs at his arm again. It jolts his tail, but now the Land-Walkers are starting to scare him again. He tries to look around, but all he can see is the faint red light, there are even fainter shadows, but they don't look like anything.

The cheek-hair man is making the _hold still_ hiss again, but Angus isn't sure if he should listen.

 _Don't hurt me._ He tries to say, but why would the Land-Walkers understand him? He certainly can't understand them. There is a little pinch in his arm, little more than a pinprick, barely noticeable and the hands slacken their grip. They are still holding him firmly, but he could pull his arm away now, he thinks.

Was that all they wanted? Angus tries to turn his head, to see what they've done to him but he thinks that they have covered his eyes with something. In a moment, they untie the thing around his arm and then they're pressing against the pinched spot, but nothing hurts any more than it did before.

He doesn't understand what they're doing and he thinks maybe that should scare him, but they also haven't hurt him. Angus experimentally pulls his arm towards his chest and the hands allow him to take it. That was all they wanted then, he guesses. He cradles the pinched arm close to his body, trying to feel along the same place the gruff man did. There is a little bit of something stuck to the place where they pinched him, but other than that his arm is fine.

He cautiously lifts a hand to his face and yes, there is something over his eyes. It feels like the jacket of the cheek-hair man, draped carefully over the top of his head. He tugs it away and none of the Land-Walkers stop him.

He is lying on some sort of unnaturally flat place, it is hard as rock, but impossibly smooth. Above him, there are lights, like multiple suns above him. They hurt his eyes if he looks directly at them so he turns his attention to the gruff man at his side.

He's small, almost as short as the lip-hair man, but his hair isn't just on his lips or cheeks, its all over his face. Was this how Land-Walkers decided who was in charge? Was this actually the pod leader? His hair is silvery white, like Angus' grandfather's had started to turn before he died.

The possibly pod leader catches Angus' eye and immediately calls the others over. They come slowly, speaking in low soft voices. If he ignores the strange, short sounds and only focuses on the tone, he thinks that they are trying be soothing.

It's hard to do, laying down the way he is, but Angus sets aside the jacket and hesitantly signs _hello?_ He trills uncertainty as he does.

The man with they the glass in front of his eyes gasps and leans forward. He says something to the other Land-Walkers, his tone quick and...excited? Angus thinks. Then, he moves his hands, and it isn't just gestures, its _words_ but they're wrong.

A different language, but they're _trying_. Angus moves his hands again. _Who are you? Where am I?_

What he says doesn't really matter, there's no way for them to understand each other, but it will be enough to at least try and meet them halfway, right? Maybe they won't hurt him if they think he's trying to talk. Or maybe they _will_ hurt him but it's too late for that.

The other Land-Walkers are vocalizing, but they don't speak with their hands. The eye glass man replies with his voice too. Angus watches them, trying to understand.

Maybe...Maybe they're the opposite of mers?

What if they use their voices for the little details and their hands for bigger things? But when the eye glass man spoke, it looked like a proper language, not just emotions. It's too confusing and he wants to go back to sleep.

The possibly pod leader shoves something into the eye glass man's hands and grumbles something. Angus pays attention to the sounds this time, trying to pick out..something. Words, maybe? He tries to think about how a vocal language would work.

Angus tries to sit up on his elbows, but the muscles of his tail scream protest and he falls back to the smooth-rock with a gasp and a loud crash. Immediately the Land-Walkers are back at his side, their hands hold him down, but he thinks that maybe he can trust them a bit. They tried to talk to him and they haven't hurt him.

He makes himself relax, still breathing hard from the pain and the Land-Walkers are chattering around him. The maybe pod leader is shooing the eye glass man away and the woman who had cut Angus out of the net is trailing after him. The cheek-hair man has a hand on Angus' chest, keeping him from sitting up.

Angus whimpers and lifts his hands to sign, but he doesn't know what to say, it doesn't matter what he says. They can't understand him, and he can't understand them.

The cheek-hair man takes one of Angus' hands in his own, not restraining, just... holding. Like a little hand hug. It isn't as good as a real hug would be, but Angus thinks that a real hug would hurt so he squeezes the hand hard.

The man arranges the jacket over Angus' chest without breaking their hand hug and Angus feels himself drifting back to sleep.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This one get's pretty dark kay guys? The long and short of it is that Angus' tailfin gets amputated and he doesn't respond well to it so take care of yourselves kay? 
> 
> I want to thank everyone who has left kudos and especially everyone who has left the lovely comments!! I am absolutely terrible at replying to those but I read over them all the time

CHAPTER 2

He cycles between awake and asleep in a vague, impossible to track way. He wakes and there is someone beside him, the person changes, and that is the only way he knows time has passed. Whenever the eye glass man is there, usually accompanied by the net cutting woman, they try to speak to each other. Their languages are still completely different, but it is enough for someone to at least try speaking to Angus. Other times it is the cheek-hair man, who hand hugs Angus until he falls back asleep.

As time passes, the pain in his tail fades until it is little more than an ache. He is able to sit up again, but moving his fluke is still painful. He isn't usually awake long enough for it to matter. One day, he wakes and there are more people in the room. They are all gathered around him, speaking quickly and quietly, moving around with efficient steps

When he sees that he is awake, the cheek-hair man smiles down at Angus and offers a hand hug. Angus accepts and glances at the other people in the room. His fist instinct is to ask what is going on with his hands, but the Land-Walkers definitely had a vocal language and he didn't really want to let go of the cheek-hair man's hand.

He's smiling and talking in a calm way, so nothing bad is probably happening, but Angus really _really_ wishes that he could ask. The others are messing around with some sort of cloth that's threaded through a couple of sticks. They're being directed around it by the man with hair on his lip.

Cheek-hair man is talking again, motioning to the cloth and to Angus, his voice is low and soothing, like he thinks Angus is going to be afraid. Should he be afraid? Is something bad going to happen with the cloth? Angus vocalizes confusion/uncertainty, his fingers twitch to ask _what's going on?_ But he doesn't want to stop hand hugging and they wouldn't understand him anyway.

The cheek-hair man squeezes his hand gently and says something in the low soft voice. He's smiling, trying to look calm but Angus can see that he's nervous. He keeps glancing to the others and to the cloth. Angus cranes his neck, trying to get a better look at what they're doing.

From the doors behind where the others are arranging the cloth, another woman comes into the room. She is tall and thin with dark skin, like the pod that had once visited from southern waters. They hadn't stayed long, but they had been kind to Angus while they stayed.

The man with hair all over his face comes in behind her, pushing a strange Land-Walker device in front of him. This one looks almost like the shelf that Angus is on, only it is smaller and has little round wheels that let her move it easily. There are even more devices on it, and they chirp and flicker like little birds as he watches.

The man follows his gaze and takes a deep breath. He talks to Angus in that calm voice, and smiles at the new woman. He points to her several times and repeats the sounds. Angus' brow furrows as he tries to work out what the cheek-hair man is trying to say.

The woman puts a hand to her chest and says the word again, slowly and clearly. From the corner of his eye, Angus can see the others have stopped messing around with the cloth and are looking at them intently.

“Lu-cre-tia” the woman says, and she pats her chest. Then she puts a hand on the Cheek-hair man's shoulder and says “Mag-nus” Then she points to Angus.

Names.

She is teaching him their names!

Angus jerks his hand out of the—Magnus, his name is Magnus—grip. His hands flutter about, too excited to make the proper shapes. He's smiling so widely that his cheeks ache. A happy trill escapes him and he doesn't even try to stop it.

Magnus is smiling too and Angus tries to repeat his name back to him. He manages the first sound, but the others twist strangely in his throat no matter how hard he tries. That puts a bit of a damper on his enthusiasm, but Magnus doesn't seem bothered by it. He points to Angus. He wants to know Angus' name.

His hands form the right shape and he uses the trilling pup-call that the others identified him with. Magnus tries, but he does about as well as Angus did with his name. He gets the hand shapes right, but the call comes out as more of a hum. Still, Angus can't bring himself to be bothered by it.

The others crowd around, introducing themselves and mangling the sounds of Angus' name in a completely unique way for each of them. Then they try to correct each other with their own horrible pronunciations and by the end of it they're all mostly saying his name wrong in more or less the same way.

Davenport is the one to call an end to the language attempts, motioning to the cloth and to Lucretia. The energy in the room plummets as though someone has pointed out a shark and Angus glances around nervously. “Mm?” He asks, holding out a hand to Magnus. He doesn't understand why everyone is so quiet now, so subdued.

Magnus takes his hand between two of his and speaks gently to him again, motioning to Lucretia and to the one called Merle. She smiles in a very unconvincing way and Angus tries to convey that he isn't fooled. He must manage it because she sighs and holds out a hand to Merle. He plucks one of the things from the cart and hands it to her, she passes it to Angus.

It's a funny shaped bit of the clear plastic that Angus sometimes found along the beach. Only it isn't shaped like a bottle. Lucretia lets him hold it and turn it over in his hands, trying to puzzle out what it came from. He hands it back to her with a furrowed brow and she takes it and puts it against her face. He can see the way it is shaped now, to fit over the nose and mouth. _Why though?_

His hands form the question and he trills inquiry, but of course they don't understand. Lucretia hands him the mask again though and he puts it against his own face. Lucretia smiles again, more real this time. She's talking again, he thinks she's trying to explain something about the mask, she's gesturing to the machine and to the tube that connects the mask to it.

Angus takes the mask off of his face and offers it to her again in case she needs it. She smiles and takes it to press against her face. This time she takes the strap that is threaded through it and fastens it around her head so that it stays without her having to hold onto it. None of this is clarifying anything, but explaining this seems to be important to her so he does his best to listen.

Magnus says something as well, motioning to Angus' tail. He's talking in a strange, quiet way, not the way almost sad and there is something in his face that seems sad as well. Something is definitely going on, but Angus can't figure out what.

He twitches his fluke idly, but doing so aggravates the injury that is yet to heal and he whines through his teeth at the pain. Magnus puts a hand on his shoulder, speaking quickly now, but Angus can tell he's trying to sound calm.

Lucretia is reaching out with the mask again, but Angus doesn't really care about it right now. He wants to know what is going on. There's something bad happening, no matter how much everyone is trying to pretend that there isn't.

Angus pushes the mask away and tries to sit up, but Magnus' hands are on his shoulders and now they're holding him down. Angus tries to push the hands away but Magnus is much stronger than him. He trills questions and tries to tell them to stop, but they aren't answering him and they aren't stopping.

His tail is thrashing and it _hurts_ so much that Angus screams and black spots crawl over his vision. When the spots fade, there are more hands holding him down and the mask is strapped onto his face. The air smells wrong, sweet and fake. He twists his head, trying to throw the mask off but Lucretia has fastened the strap around his head and someone has their hand over it, pressing it against his skin.

_Stop it._ He tries to say. _You're hurting me._

They don't listen though. He's breathing hard, trying to understand what he did wrong, why they turned on him. He thought they were getting along, he thought they were nice. He thought they were friends.

The more he struggles, though, the more tired he gets. There is blackness creeping from the corners of his vision and he can't stop it. Magnus is speaking to him, he can hear it above the others, he's trying to say Angus' name. Trying to tell him something. Angus doesn't figure out what it is before the blackness swallows his mind.

***

He wakes up somewhere dark and quiet and empty. There's no one sitting beside him the way there has been since he was rescued—captured? By the Land-Walkers. His throat feels raw and scratchy, like he's breathed sea water again. There's a cloth draped over him and he's lying on something soft, but that doesn't stop him from shuddering.

He curls his tail close around himself, forgetting again that moving it hurts, but this time there is no flare of pain. He flexes his fluke but there is no sensation.

He thinks that maybe he was sleeping on it and it went numb. It's happened before, but when he moves his tail the cloth falls away and he realizes that his fluke isn't numb.

Its _gone._

He stares at the place where his fluke should be, where his fluke is not and tries to comprehend. There is some part of his brain that just won't _connect_ what he is seeing with reality, he keeps moving his fluke as though it will simply appear if he keeps trying to move it. It doesn't, of course.

There was a pup in the pod once, a little girl born with a misshapen flipper. Her mother had done what she could to protect her, but the rest of the pod had kept them at the edges because they didn't want to attract predators to the other pups. The pup with the misshapen flipper hadn't lasted long. She swam wrong, she couldn't keep up, she was weak.

Now Angus was misshapen. Now Angus was weak, already left behind by his pod, trapped here with the Land-Walkers. The Land-Walkers he had thought were nice, he thought he could trust them, but this was what his trust had earned him.

_Why?_ Why would they do this? Was it because he was saying their names? They hadn't seemed to mind, they had seemed excited. He doesn't understand. He realizes, distantly, that he is making a high wailing sound. He can't make himself stop. He doesn't understand why they would do this. Why they would hurt him. Doom him.

There are sounds in the hallway, but he doesn't understand them either, they are meaningless, distant. Then the door opens. There is a figure in the doorway, silhouetted by the light beyond. He knows the shape of the shoulders, broad and strong.

Magnus.

He's come back, why? What does he want now? Is he still angry? What is he going to do?

Angus scoots backwards with his hands, not taking his eyes away from Magnus. He scoots right off the bed and onto the hard floor. He doesn't care, Magnus is coming into the room now, Magnus is coming for him.

Angus squeals apology. _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me I learned my lesson._ And his hands are moving through signs so fast even he isn't sure what he's saying. They stutter through the motions, trying to make six different signs at once. There's too many words crowding around his mind.

_What did you do? Why did you do it? I thought we were friends I thought you were nice_.

Magnus is holding himself low, making the _hold still_ hiss over and over but Angus isn't going to hold still. Angus wedges himself into a corner and stares at Magnus, his hands still twitching into half-words.

Magnus is staring at him too, there is anguish on his face. Apology. His hands are half reaching for Angus, like he wants to comfort him. But Angus must be reading him wrong, he must have made too many assumptions, the Land-Walkers are too different and somewhere along the way he offended them.   
He made them so mad that they cut off his fluke. They doomed him to die slowly of starvation or to be torn apart by predators.

Magnus shuffles closer, just barely an inch, but Angus flinches anyway. Magnus is talking, speaking in that low way that Angus thought was supposed to be soothing but maybe it's angry. He keeps shuffling closer and closer and Angus can't stop him. Magnus is big and strong and healthy and Angus is small and weak and deformed. He hides himself in his arms and hopes that Magnus will just go away.

Magnus doesn't go away. There are more voices in the hallway and Magnus answers them and then there are voices in the room, all around him. Hands touching his arms, touching his tail.

Angus doesn't mean to, but when the hands touch his tail he lashes out. He catches someone with it and he hears them fall with a loud _oof_. He thinks that it's Barry. The other voices rise up and Angus curls his arms even tighter over his head, sure that they're going to be even more angry with him now. Now they're going to beat him and tear him and leave him for dead.

Only they don't.

They back away, they speak quietly, they don't hurt him.

He dares to peek out of his arms.

Barry and Lup are closest, kneeling just out of arm's reach of him. Barry is trying to catch his breath and wave Lup away at the same time and doesn't seem to be managing either. Magnus is sitting against the opposite wall, staring at Angus like he was the one to catch the blow to the gut. There is another man, who looks almost exactly like Lup, kneeling halfway between both camps, flicking his eyes between everyone else in the room.

He says something, but it's too loud and Angus flinches.

Lup hisses something at him, but he doesn't seem bothered. He stands up and walks through the door. Angus watches him go, half expecting him to charge back into the room. He doesn't understand these Land-Walkers. He doesn't understand anything that has happened since he got tangled in that stupid net.

Barry finally manages to convince Lup to leave him be and Lup turns to Magnus. She says something in the low-quiet maybe angry voice and Magnus replies tonelessly. He's still watching Angus with that gut-punched look. Like Angus was the one to betray him, not the other way around.

Lup looks at Angus too and she bites her lip. Then she starts coming closer.

Angus pushes himself into the corner, but she's talking in a high, apology sort of tone. He flicks his eyes to the Barry and Magnus, but both of them are still preoccupied. Lup is still getting closer, still talking in that high gentle tone, she's not reaching for him yet, but her fingers twitch in a way that means she wants to.

Angus doesn't understand.

First he thinks that Magnus and the Land-Walkers are his friends, then they attack him and cut off his fluke and now they are acting like friends again.

He doesn't understand.

Lup pulls the blanket off of the bed and gently spreads it over him. He lets her. He lets her sit down in front of him and talk in the gentle apology voice that he doesn't understand. He shivers when the cold of the walls and floor seeps into his skin and Lup pulls the blanket higher. Eventually, its too much energy to be afraid and awake at the same time and he falls asleep.

He cycles between waking and sleeping again. Just like before, there is someone in the room with him when he wakes up.

It's never Magnus.

He is still very careful to act submissive around the ones that do visit. Barry wants him to try and speak, but Angus doesn't want to, not when it got him in so much trouble before. Lucretia comes once, but he panics at the sight of her, thinking that she has come with the mask again.

She doesn't come back.

Magnus doesn't come at all.

Angus still doesn't understand.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Lup is there most often, for some reason. He didn't see much of her before, but now she seems to be the by his side constantly. When he panics at the sight of Lucretia, it is Lup who sits and talks to him while the man who looks like her—Taako, Angus learns—leads Lucretia away.

Lup is also the one who talks to him calmly even while the others, minus Magnus, suspend him in the strange cloth stretcher again and carry him through the halls. They take him out of the building and set him on a stone walkway that leads to the ocean.

Are they letting him go?

Angus glances to Lup, and she smiles and gestures him to the water.

He goes without a second thought.

The stone slopes gently into the waves, a natural ramp that makes it easy for him to slip beneath the water and then Angus is free. It is hard with no fluke, harder than he had feared it would be. He has half the power, half the speed, half the maneuverability. He is free, but he isn't going to survive.

Angus laboriously makes his way to the rocks at the bottom of the ocean and clings to them. He can see the vague shapes of the Land-Walkers above the water, but none of them are coming in after him, they are leaving. Angus watches them go, then fights his way to the surface.

The water isn't deep here, he's still near the incline and it isn't too hard to pull his head above the waves. He's breathing hard and he hasn't even made it away from the shore. Angus takes a deep breath and plunges back beneath the water.

It really isn't deep here, barely enough to cover his head in most places. It gets a bit deeper further out, but the place the Land-Walkers have freed him is mostly penned in by sheer walls of stone. He thinks that this is some sort of tide pool, and it will be deep enough to cross into open water at high tide. Until then, he can wait and try to plan.

He is going to be alone, from now on. Even if his own pod stayed nearby, they wouldn't accept him back. They had barely allowed him to stay when he was merely orphaned, not injured. Any passing pod he might encounter will drive him away before he attracts predators.

Maybe he'll just stay in these tide pools, there won't be much food, but he won't be killed. He can venture out at tide and look for bigger meals, maybe travel along the shore a bit for a place that isn't quite so penned in.

First things first. Food and shelter. He dives back beneath the still water. It is hard work, swimming. He ends up mostly pulling himself along the bottom, the smooth rock makes it difficult, but it's faster than thrashing his tail uselessly.

He's so preoccupied with pulling himself along, fruitlessly looking for muscles or crabs or even little fish that he runs himself right into another rock. Rubbing his head, Angus looks up, but there's no rock. There is only water in front of him, and what looks to be a cave.

He tries to swim into it, but he is stopped by an invisible force. Then there is motion inside of the cave, and there is Lup, standing in front of him. She is under the water, in the cave, but she looks as though she is standing on dry land. Her hair and clothes don't float in tiny currents, there are no bubbles drifting from her mouth.

Angus' hand rests against the invisible barrier, it is as solid as the rock around him. Unnaturally smooth, unnaturally straight.

The Land-Walkers haven't set him free at all.

They've just put him in a bigger cage.

Angus drags himself back along the floor, his tail is thrashing unhelpfully, doing more to send him in aimless circles than anything else. He drags himself back up the ramp out of the false-ocean onto the false-beach and tries to catch his breath.

There is real sky above him, and he can hear the real ocean not far away, but he is penned in by high walls. He doesn't think that even high tide will cover them. He is still trapped.

 

At least here in this cage he can keep track of the days. He spends three of them hiding. When Lup or one of the others comes out he retreats into the pool and lingers at the back corner until they leave. Mostly, they just sit at the edge of the water and try to talk to him, but at least three times a day they come with food.

Barry comes with extra food a lot of the time, but he won't toss it out to Angus, he sets it on the bank beside himself and waits. He's made it very clear that if Angus wants it, he'll have to come up and get it, but Angus refuses.

Aside from Barry, Lup is his most frequent visitor. She sits with her feet in the water and she talks. She mentions Magnus a lot and Angus finds himself drifting forward without really meaning to. Then he catches himself and he goes back to his corner.

Magnus hasn't come to visit him and Angus isn't sure what he's going to do when he does.

If he does.

Part of him says that he should be more wary of the Land-Walkers, he can't afford to loose another fin after all. But the Land-Walkers haven't made any sort of move towards him since they brought him to this cage. They've sat on the shore and talked at him, but there isn't really anything stopping them from wading into the water after him. It would barely come up to their chests, but they stay on the shore. They bring him food even though the could leave him to starve, they don't even leave him to stew in his loneliness. A large part of him is afraid, but a larger part is lonely.

Even though he lived on the edges of the pod, he had still been _in_ the pod. They had still spoken to him, still brushed against him while he slept. He had thought that even that life was lonely, living in the Land-Walker's prison is even lonelier.

On the fourth day, Barry doesn't bring food with him. Instead, he has a piece of wood in his hands. He talks for a little while, turning the wood over and over in his hands. He mentions Magnus several times, but Magnus doesn't appear.

When Barry leaves, the piece of wood is sitting on the bank, entirely alone. Angus watches it for a long moment, waiting for something to happen, but the wood just sits there, as wood usually does. Angus dips below the water and drags himself to shore. His fingers are raw from the rough stone and they have started to bleed in a few places.

He cares more about the wood than about his fingers though. Only it isn't just wood, its a bird, a bird made from wood. It is smooth as sea glass, and Angus doesn't get splinters when he runs his raw fingers over the surface of it.

He falls asleep that night clutching the wooden bird to his chest. It floats when he accidentally drops it in the water and after that Angus takes it everywhere with him. It's like having a little friend.

Two days after he brings the bird, Barry comes back with something else. This time it is a brightly colored square that rattles in a strange way when he tilts it. He doesn't try to talk to Angus today, he just sits at the edge of the water, tilting his little rattling square and biting his lip.

After a few minutes of rattling, he makes a pleased sound and then he turns the square around and goes right back to rattling. Angus cranes his neck, trying to see just what is so fascinating about this square, but Barry is holding it at an angle where he can't see.

Without really meaning to, Angus drifts forward, the wooden bird held tight in his hand. Barry doesn't even glance at him, just keeps staring and rattling. Before he's really thought it through, Angus dips below the water and drags himself forward. Not far, just a bit, because drifting is slow and maybe Barry will put the square away before he gets to find out what it is.

He comes up closer than he really means to, but it will be too much work to go backwards so he stays. He is still too far away to see though, and Barry still isn't paying attention, so he comes just a bit closer. His fingers are tight around the wooden body of the bird, as though it will keep him safe if Barry looks up and gets mad.

He has to float right next to Barry to see what he's doing. Close enough to feel the heat of Barry's body through the coarse blue pants he wears. He leans carefully forward, glancing to Barry's face with every inch he moves, but Barry is staring intently at the rattling square and doesn't seem to notice.

There is a tiny silver ball in the rattling square, and Barry is guiding it through a maze of little walls. It rattles every time Barry tilts it around a corner, bringing it closer to a blue circle in one corner. There is a red circle in the opposite corner. A start and a finish, Angus realizes. He watches Barry guide the little ball to the blue corner and he waits for him to turn the maze around and start sending it back to the red.

Instead, Barry holds out the maze to Angus. Angus chirps and pushes away from Barry, he doesn't get far, of course, but he is at the edge of arm's reach. The bird is pulled close to his chest, his fingers holding it so tightly that if it were a real bird it would surely have a few things to say about it.

Barry doesn't seem bothered though, he is still offering the maze to Angus, waiting for him to take it. Hesitantly, Angus grasps the edge of the square, waiting for Barry to yank it away. Instead, Barry lets go and smiles.

Angus pulls the maze square closer to himself and Barry keeps smiling at him. Barry says something and leans forward. He...wants to watch Angus solve it?

Glancing to Barry's face with every move, Angus guides the little silver ball to the red corner. Then Barry holds out his hand, he's still smiling and Angus puts the maze square back in his hand. Barry takes the ball back to the blue corner, then hands the maze to Angus again.

They spend at least an hour passing the maze back and forth and by the end of it, they are racing against each other to see who can guide the ball to their corner first.

After an hour, Lup comes out and at first Angus is nervous, but she doesn't seem to want to do anything more than sit beside Barry and watch them race. The second time he passes the maze back to Barry, Lup starts jostling his arms to throw him off and the both of them are laughing as Barry tries to solve the maze and Lup tries to take it away from him.

They both stay out with Angus well into the evening and eventually the water grows cold enough that Angus pulls himself out onto the rock with them. He sits out of arm's reach, but they can slide the puzzle back and forth across the ground so no one minds.

That night, Angus sleeps on his soft pallet with a roof over his head and the wooden bird watching over him. The maze square leans against it's side.

This is the beginning of a new routine. Every day, Barry brings a new puzzle and they learn how to solve it and then race one another. Most days, Lup comes out too and sometimes she tries her hand at the puzzle, but most of the time she just tires to sabotage Barry. Angus gathers a collection of puzzle toys and Lup starts bringing him more soft things for his nest. Everything is just about perfect, in fact. Which means that its time for something to come along and throw it all into chaos.

Three weeks, or so he thinks, into the new routine, he is sitting closer to Barry and Lup as they play with the puzzle. Close enough for Lup to reach out and catch his hand in hers when he tries to pass the puzzle. She is trying to be gentle, but even that is enough to make him hiss and try to pull his hand away. His fingers are cracked and raw from pulling him along the bottom of the pool and though he hasn't been spending as much time in the water now that he has Barry and Lup to play with, he still likes to swim.

Lup lets him take his hand back, but she reaches out for it again, asking to see. Angus slowly stretches his hand out and lets her examine his fingers. She is quiet for a long moment, so long and so quiet that even Barry notices. “Lup?”

She says something back to him and shows him Angus' hand, then they are both quiet. Angus slips his hand out of her grip and thankfully she lets him, but Barry doesn't pick up the puzzle again. They talk quietly between themselves, glancing to Angus frequently.

They've been teaching him words as the days go by. Angus is quick with them, even though he can't say most of them back. He knows simple things, yes and no, he can name everything in his area, but he doesn't know the words for what they are talking about.

He signs Barry's name, that is another thing they have taught him.

Barry looks at him and bites at his lip like he is trying to solve a difficult puzzle, then he reaches out for Angus' hand again. Angus lets him see it after a moment and Barry gently trails a finger over the bleeding places on Angus' hand.

“Hurt.” Barry says quietly.

Angus tilts his head and makes a questioning sound.

Barry makes an exaggerated wince and holds his own hand close, like he has injured it. “Hurt.” he says again, now gesturing to Angus' hand. “Ow.” He cradles his mock-injured hand close, the way Angus is doing now.

Angus furrows his brow, trying to figure out just what the goal of this exercise is. Does Barry want to know his word for injured? He signs it and Barry repeats it back, but that doesn't seem to be what he wants.

“Hurt.” Barry says again, cradling his hand. Then he gestures to the door that he and Lup come through every day and says “Lucretia.” Then he spins his other hand in the air around the 'injured' one and smiles happily then says a new word.

_What?_

Barry points to the door again. “Lucretia.”

Angus shakes his head. No, he doesn't want to see Lucretia. She has been avoiding him almost as much as Magnus and he is just fine with that. He certainly isn't going to go looking for her.

“Merle?” Barry asks, pointing to the door again.

Angus furrows his brow, why would he want to see Merle?

“Hurt.” Barry says again, frowning, “Merle,” he says the new word again, then he smiles.

Is Merle injured?

He signs the question, but Barry shakes his head.

 _Merle not hurt. Angus hurt. Merle...._ His hands hover uncertainly in the air, searching for the word.

“Merle...” He says _another_ new word and Angus shakes his head. He still doesn't understand. Barry sighs and thinks for a moment. Then he brightens.

“Angus hurt.” He says, checking to see if Angus is following along. Angus nods. They have established that. “Merle--” He says the new word again, stressing it carefully.

Then he gestures at Angus' tail.

Merle wants to cut off his fingers.

Angus is moving before he's even processed the thought, he flings himself into the water careless of the depth and though he smacks his head against the bottom, he doesn't have time to care. He half thrashes, half pulls himself to the farthest corner, hoping, praying that it will be far enough away. That Barry—that the Land-Walkers will not cross this one boundary.

His fingers have been shredded by his flight, but at least they're still attached, Angus curls his hands into fists and hides them under his chin. There is warm blood dripping down his arms, but he ignores it. Barry and Lup are standing at the edge of the water, reaching out for him, calling his name, Barry is trying to sign something, but Angus doesn't care about what he has to say now.

They're both shouting across the water now, but neither of them tries to go in.

Neither of them comes in.

Angus is safe.

Barry and Lup keep calling for him for a long time and Angus wishes that he had thought enough to bring his bird with him, but it is sitting by the side of the water where he left it. Barry seems to catch him looking at it because he gently sets the bird on the water and gives it a nudge to send it Angus' way.

Angus lets it drift until it bumps gently against his chest and then he dares to reach one hand down to catch it. He stains the wood with his blood, but the bird doesn't seem to mind. Lup and Barry leave the shore, but in a few seconds they reappear by the invisible wall, knocking and calling his name. Angus pushes away from the wall, but he doesn't dare go back to the bank.

Barry and Lup eventually give up and Angus is left alone, shaking in the cold water as the sun goes down. He desperately wants to go back to solid ground, to curl up in his warm, soft nest and pretend that the word doesn't exist for a long time.

The only problem with that is it involves him climbing out of the water, which is the only place the Land-Walkers have thus far not come. He doesn't know if they just can't swim or if there is some other reason, but he isn't going to risk coming into their territory, no matter how cold the water gets.

Sleeping in the water isn't something he likes to do, and it isn't something he's tried to do since the Land-Walkers cut off his fluke, but it is his only option now. Angus lays flat on his back and wills himself to float. Its hard to do because he needs to be relaxed and every time there is a sound he jerks up out of the water to check if Lup and Barry have snuck back in. Sleep is just teasing at the very edges of his mind when he hears the door open.

Angus holds absolutely still, head barely poking up out of the water as Magnus shuffles across the stone beach. He's rubbing at his eyes and he really doesn't seem to be paying attention, which is odd, for someone who is trying to sneak up on Angus while he's sleeping.

He stops outside of the little building that houses Angus' nest and gently eases the door open. Of course, Angus isn't inside, but Magnus doesn't seem to realize this for a long moment. Then he slips into the building and there is a quiet moment as Angus assumes that Magnus searches all through his nest for him.

Then Magnus steps back out into the moonlight and finally spots Angus. They both stare at each other for a long moment, neither of them really sure what the other is going to do. Then Magnus says _Seaweed_.

Well, it isn't exactly the sign, but it's as close as any of the Land-Walkers have come to Angus' language, and he would be excited, but it's such an odd word to choose. He isn't confusing it for anything else, seaweed is a pretty distinctive sign, a side to side waving of the hand, and Magnus had done it near perfectly.

Angus blinks at Magnus for a long time, trying to figure out just what he means. Does he want seaweed? There isn't any in the water, Magnus should know that. Is he offering _Angus_ seaweed? Angus doesn't particularly _want_ seaweed. Is it some sort of peace offering?

Then Magnus speaks, hesitantly and with a lot of pauses. He seems to remember that Angus can't understand him about halfway through his speech and then he puts his face in his hands.

After a few seconds, he looks at Angus again and then he says something and gestures to the bird that Angus is still holding. There is a faint almost-smile on his lips. Angus holds the wooden bird closer, if Magnus wants it then he isn't sure what he's going to do. It would be stupid to challenge someone as big and strong as Magnus over a wooden bird. It's not even a real bird that he could eat. It's just something that Angus likes, but he doesn't think that he will give it up if Magnus asks for it.

Magnus doesn't ask for it though. Instead, he floats another wooden bird on the water to Angus. Angus reaches out for it with his free hand, it is the same basic shape as the original bird, but this one is more detailed. It has eyes and even feathers.

Magnus is speaking again, low and quiet and calm, the way they all speak to him. Angus listens with a hand on each of the birds. He should be afraid, he thinks, because this is the first time Magnus has come to visit and it just so happens to fall on the one day where Barry and Lup apparently decide to turn on him.

But Magnus isn't trying to coax him closer, he's just sitting at the edge of the water, occasionally dipping his fingers in and talking. Angus listens, because it is all he can do, and he realizes just how much he's missed Magnus. Lup and Barry are—were—kind but Magnus was the one to hand hug him and talk to him in the gentle voice that Angus realizes he has been missing.

Magnus eventually runs out of things to talk about and he sighs and pushes himself back to his feet. He says _seaweed_ again and then he leaves. Angus still doesn't know what any of this had to do with seaweed, but then again, he hasn't really understood anything about the Land-Walkers so it's not like this is new.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Lup is back in the morning. She is sitting very quietly at the edge of the water, her hands resting on her knees, palm up. When she realizes that Angus is watching, she smiles and ducks her head down a bit. It's such a submissive gesture that Angus is momentarily taken aback.

In his pod, he was the one who made such gestures, he was the weakest, the lowest. But now Lup is doing it to him. Angus doesn't trust it. Not after yesterday.

She is signing his name, she isn't as good at it as Barry, but she is trying. She flicks her fingers in the water a few times like that will draw him near. Angus stays where he is, the wooden birds floating beside him.

He's shivering, the sun is barely up and it hasn't warmed the waters at all. He's been out all night, and he's tired but he can't go back to shore, where Lup is waiting. She offers him a new puzzle, but Angus is in no mood to play games.

He doesn't understand what she is trying to do. Yesterday, she and Barry had seemed worried about him being hurt, and then they had wanted to hurt him even more badly. She isn't acting angry, she's acting sorry, she's not trying to catch Angus at all, she's just waiting for him to come to her.

He doesn't _understand._

None of the Land-Walkers are acting right. Magnus brought him a new bird, Barry brings him puzzles, Lup is sitting at the edge of the water trying to look small and harmless. These actions say that they want to be friends, maybe even want to be pod. But they cut off his tail fin, they threatened to cut off his fingers. That isn't what friends to. That isn't what pod does.

Somewhere, he misread something. He came to the wrong conclusion, but where?

He imagines all of the evidence laid out in front of him.

He'll start with Lup, since she is here.

She was there when they pulled him out of the ocean, she helped Barry cut him out of the net. That was a nice thing.

She was also there when they cut off his tail fin.

She had been one of the ones messing around with the carrying cloth, she had told him her name along with the others. They had all been smiling and excited, happy to learn from each other. No one had seemed angry.

They had been sad after Davenport said something though, and then Lucretia had come with the mask and they had held him down for her to put it over his face. Then he had woken up without his tail fin and Lup had wrapped the blanket around him.

Before and after they cut off his tail fin, they had been kind.

There is some piece that he is missing. Angus knows that if he could just reach out and grasp it, everything would fall into place everything would make sense. But he doesn't know what he's missing.

 _You'll have to gather more evidence_ His mind says.

Angus glances at Lup, she's still watching him quietly. When he keeps watching her, she starts talking again, explaining, Angus thinks. They'd done this before, too. They kept trying to tell him what they were going to do, but he can't understand them.

More things that don't fit in with them cutting off his tail.

The missing piece is tantalizingly close.

It's sitting right at the edge of the water, waiting for him to climb out and find it.

Angus has always been too curious for his own good.

Slowly, slowly, he drifts closer to Lup. He doesn't climb out onto the bank like he would have before, but he comes within arm's reach. She smiles at him and she doesn't move. There is something tense about her, it's almost enough to make him nervous, but he thinks that maybe they are both tense. Neither of them is sure what is going to happen.

Well. Angus made his move, now it's her turn.

He expects her to reach for him, to try and drag him back up on to the shore and hold him down while Merle cuts off his fingers. She doesn't. Instead she slowly—almost as slowly as Angus had moved to get this close—reaches behind herself and holds out a scrap of cloth to him.

No, two scraps.

Angus slowly takes them from her and drifts backwards to get a better look at them. They're little cloth hands.

Angus is never going to understand Land-Walkers.

Lup calls his name softly and he sees that she has her own pair of cloth hands. Then she puts her hands into the cloth and drags her fingers over the rough stone. Angus pulls his own cloth hands on, it takes a bit to figure out exactly how they're supposed to go, and they aren't comfortable on the open wounds of his fingers but when he mimics Lup and touches the rough stone, it doesn't hurt his fingers as badly.

She has given him a way to move around without hurting himself.

The Land-Walkers have been trying to help him nine times out of ten. Is one giant, glaring exception enough to discount all of the other efforts?

Then the piece clicks into place.

There had already been something wrong with his tail, he couldn't move it without pain. There had been a mer once, driven away from his pod because there was fishing line tangled around his tail. It had dug into the skin and his tail had turned terrible colors and the mer couldn't move it and then he'd gotten sicker and sicker until he couldn't move at all.

Had Angus' tail become sick? Was that why they cut it off? Before the rest of him got sick too?

His hands form the question and Lup watches closely, but she can't understand.

Angus tries again.

He touches the wound on his forehead and signs _hurt_.

Lup nods, looking sorry.

He takes off the cloth hands and touches his fingers. _Hurt._

Lup nods again.

Angus pulls the cloth hands on again and says _fix._

Lup mimics the word, but she doesn't seem to understand. Angus thinks back to the way Barry had tried to explain it.

 _Angus Hurt._ He signs again, cradling one hand and frowning. Lup looks sad and she starts to reach out for his hand but Angus shakes his head at her. That isn't what he wants, he wants her to pay attention.

 _Angus hurt._ He starts again, then he pulls the cloth hands on and says _Lup fix._ He smiles and says _fix._

Frown, cradle hand, _hurt._

Smile, tug on cloth hand, _fix._

Lup straightens and there is a light in her eyes that might be understanding. She pats at her pockets and then pulls out a thin stick and she swiftly snaps it in half. _Hurt._ She signs.

Well, technically it's broken, but close enough. _Yes._

She puts the halves back together and holds them so that the stick is whole again. _Fix._

 _Yes._ Angus signs. _Yes. Fix._

Lup is smiling now and she says. _Angus hurt. Merle fix._

Ah.

He _thinks_ that they cut off his tail to help him, but is he really willing to risk being wrong?

 _Lup fix._ He says, motioning to the cloth hands.

 _No._ She says back. _Merle fix...more._

Angus hesitates, he's pretty sure, looking at all the evidence, that the Land-Walkers don't _want_ to hurt him. They haven't hurt him any more than they needed to to help him.

 _You can't stay in the water forever._ He thinks to himself sternly.

 _Yes._ He signs to Lup.

She makes the sign for _you have given me something_ that he thinks might mean thank you. She scoots away from the edge to let him pull himself up and Angus does. He's tired and cold from being out in the water for so long, and the stone is already starting to warm up from the sunlight. He melts against it with a sigh.

He's ready to fall asleep right there but Lup is standing up, saying something about Merle. She's going to go get him. Angus hesitates for a moment, then signs _Magnus._

“Magnus?” Lup asks, motioning to the door.

Angus makes the grabby _give me_ gesture that they have established from passing the puzzles back and forth. _Magnus. Give me._

He wishes he could have a real conversation. Wishes he could talk in more than stilted words that might not mean what he thinks they do. He has questions and thoughts and opinions and they're all trapped in his head, rattling around like the silvery maze ball.

 _Magnus here?_ Lup asks.

 _Yes_. Angus replies. He wants Magnus with him.

Lup gently pats his shoulder and then she goes through the door and Angus is alone. His thoughts want to flutter nervously, want to come up with a thousand ways he is wrong, thousand ways this could end badly. He doesn't let them.

He breathes steadily and runs his fingers over the feathers of the new wooden bird. He can't feel them as well through the gloves, but that's alright. The stone is warm beneath him, at least compared to the water and without really meaning to, Angus falls asleep.

He wakes when a large hand shakes his shoulder. Magnus' voice reaches his ears, drawing him up through the layers of exhaustion.

Magnus uses the Land-Walker's name for him, they have a hard time pronouncing his real name, but its not like Angus does much better with their names so he doesn't mind. He sounds worried and he shakes Angus' shoulder a little bit. This is enough to snap Angus out of his thoughts and he lets the wooden bird fall out of his hands as he throws his arms around Magnus.

He freezes for a moment, maybe Magnus doesn't like hugs, or he doesn't like Angus, but before the thoughts can get too loud, Magnus is hugging him back. Magnus is even warmer than the stone, and much softer and Angus has to keep blinking to keep himself awake.

He hadn't realized just how much he missed Magnus, he had seen him just last night, but there is something comforting about the solid presence of him. The strength that he doesn't turn against Angus no matter how easily he could.

At some point, Lup and Merle arrive and they speak to Magnus in low voices for awhile. Then Lup taps on Angus' shoulder to catch his attention and signs _Angus hurt_ looking concerned. Angus hesitates for just a split second more, then he offers his hands.

Lup still looks concerned, but Merle takes one of Angus' hands in his own and starts grumbling to the others. Lup and Magnus reply every little bit, but for the most part Merle seems to be talking to himself. He pulls the cloth hands away and turns Angus' fingers this way and that, touching and then checking Angus' face.

Merle leaves when he is finished and Barry comes out to sit with the rest of them. He says something to Angus in the apology tone that Lup soon echoes. Angus thinks that they might be saying sorry for scaring him.

Angus smiles at them and soon Barry brings out a new puzzle. This one is a box with many sliding parts that Barry spends a long time moving around, eventually, the box clicks and pops open. Then he closes it back up and hands it to Angus. While he is solving it, Barry, Magnus, and Lup talk quietly. He hears his name, but when he looks up they aren't talking to him.

From then on, Magnus accompanies Lup and Barry when they come to visit. Sometimes he takes a turn passing the puzzle, but for the most part he watches. One day he comes out with a block of wood that he studiously begins cutting into.

Angus watches him for a long time, but Magnus just keeps cutting and eventually he gets bored. When he leaves he waves _seaweed_ again.

Land-Walkers are impossible to understand.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! The final chapter! I want to thank everyone who has left such absolutely wonderful comments on this fic. I'm literally the worst at replying but I love and appreciate every single one and I frequently look over them. The first chapter of the companion fic for this should be going up right after this one and the posting schedule for that one should be much more predictable. I was trying to gauge when I would get it done so that I could post them alongside each other like this and my productivity varies wildly from day to day.  
> I hope you enjoy!

The air has started to warm with approaching summer when Magnus, Lup, and Barry bring a stranger with them. He's a thin, pale man wearing a white jacket instead of the red Angus is used to. The stranger darts forward the moment his eyes land on Angus, talking too quickly for Angus to understand.

Barry has been teaching him the language and learning Angus' signs in return, but it is slow work and he is in no way ready to decode the high speed chatter that is coming from this man. He leans towards the water as the man darts past Magnus, his eyes intent on Angus.

Angus is a heartbeat away from slipping into the water when Magnus catches the stranger by the back of his coat and yanks him backwards. He speaks sternly to the stranger for a moment and Angus picks out enough words to know that he is scolding the stranger. The stranger says something meekly and Magnus lets him go, their disagreement apparently over.

Lup is trying to hide the fact that she is laughing and doing a poor job of it, but when she catches sight of Angus' uncertain expression she composes herself. She steps between Angus and the stranger and motions to him. “Lucas.” She gives him a name sign as she does and Angus mimics it.

Lucas apparently doesn't take his scolding to heart because he is all but lunging forward the moment Angus says his name, babbling excitedly. It's less frightening with Lup standing between them, but Angus still hopes that Lucas won't be a frequent visitor.

Lup and Magnus are trying to explain something, they keep motioning to Lucas and saying Merle's name. Angus tilts his head and signs _'what?'_ Lup flexes her hand and says Merle's name again, then motions to Lucas, who waves,  _Seaweed!!_ despite the fact that, once again, there is no seaweed nor has there ever been. Much less any seaweed as exciting as that. 

Land walkers. 

Magnus interrupts and says Merle's name _again_ and motions to the door.

_Merle here?_ Angus asks.

Lup shakes her head though and says something to Magnus that makes him frown.

Angus tilts his head at them, trying to figure out what is going on, but of course no answer magically comes to mind. Lucas is creeping forwards again, more slowly this time, slow enough that Magnus doesn't seem to notice.

He's murmuring something quietly and glancing at Angus' face. Angus frowns at him and narrows his eyes, but Lucas doesn't seem to think this is reason enough to give up. Lup and Magnus are still talking, not paying attention and Lucas manages to slip past their feet.

He reaches towards Angus, still talking in that low murmur, still glancing at Angus' face every little bit but he's much more focused on Angus' tail. Angus makes a low, uncertain trill, hoping that Magnus or Lup will notice and yell at Lucas again, but they're still talking.

Angus wishes he had his gloves with him, but he left them in his nest. There are raised bars on the bottom of his pool now so that he can pull himself along better, but they don't go everywhere and sometimes he still has to use his fingers. He glances to Lup and Magnus one more time, and then he flips himself into the water and pulls his way to the back corner.

He lingers at the bottom for a moment, waiting to see if Lucas will break the unspoken rule about not coming into Angus' pool. He doesn't so Angus lets himself float to the top. Lup and Magnus look at him, faces surprised and then they look down to Lucas and they frown.

While Magnus is scolding Lucas again, Lup tries to coax Angus back to the beach. _“Lucas fix._ ” She says.

“ _What fix.”_

She moves her hands but she doesn't have the words. _“Angus. Lucas fix Angus.”_

Well that just makes no sense at all.

“ _Not hurt.”_

“ _Yes hurt.”_ She insists.

“ _Where?”_

She points at the water.

That makes even _less_ sense.

“ _Come here.”_ She says, motioning him to a place beside her. So that she is between him and Lucas. Angus considers it for a moment, then slips under the water and makes his way towards her.

When he comes up, Lucas is watching him intently, he's muttering again, but Angus doesn't think that Lucas is talking to him. Lup pats the stone beside her and reluctantly, Angus pulls himself up out of the water.

“ _Lucas fix Angus.”_ Lup says again, then she motions to Angus' tail.

They want Lucas to fix his tail. “ _How?”_ Angus says, his hands moving before his mind has even fully processed Lup's meaning.

Lup stares at him but she doesn't have the words.

“ _Lucas fix.”_ She says slowly. “ _Merle hurt. Lucas fix. Angus hurt, Lucas fix.”_

“ _How?”_ He asks again, even though he knows she can't tell him. It seems impossible, that they can fix his tail, but most of the Land-Walker's things seem impossible. He doesn't want to hope, in case he is interpreting her wrong, but Lup puts a hand on his shoulder and pulls him close for a hug. She's saying something to him, he knows 'Lucas' and 'fix', but the rest of her words are meaningless.

Magnus allows Lucas to come closer after that, but he stays hovering over him the whole time. Lucas, for his part, seems to have forgotten that he is meant to be afraid of Magnus and is entirely absorbed in poking around at Angus' tail. Angus isn't too thrilled about that, but he tolerates it on the faint hope that he understood Lup right.

Lucas doesn't stop at poking. After he has finished with that, he insists on wrapping a cord around Angus' tail and then holding it along the length and then he's all but tying it into knots around Angus. Eventually though he puts the cord away and darts through the door, leaving Angus alone with Magnus and Lup.

“ _What?”_ He signs to them, trying to convey his confusion.

“ _Lucas.”_ Lup says with an expression that means that this is the only explanation she can offer.

Magnus laughs and follows Lucas through the door. A moment later, there comes a knock from the clear wall. Magnus and Lucas are standing there, seemingly waiting for something.

Angus looks to Lup and she motions him to the water.

“ _Why?_ ” He asks.

“ _Lucas.”_

Even though he still doesn't really understand what exactly is going on, Angus slips into the water. He can see Magnus across the pool, crouching in front of the solid wall and motioning for Angus to come to him. Angus pulls his way across the bottom of the pool and Magnus places a palm on the solid wall. Angus puts one of his own hands against it. Lup asks him to go around the pool a few times and when he has finished, Lucas is gone.

Angus can't really bring himself to be all that disappointed about that.

***

Lucas doesn't return in the next few days and Angus almost forgets that he ever came. There is still a quiet part of him that hopes he did not misinterpret Lup, but he doesn't listen to that part if he can help it. The normal routine is reestablished in the absence of Lucas, Barry comes with his puzzles, Lup is happy to practice signs and words with him, and Magnus carves him a new bird.

Angus is gathering quite a collection of birds at this point, and he loves each and every one. The first one has pride of place in his nest, watching over him as he sleeps. The later ones keep him company in the pool.

He is floating lazily on his back, watching the newest bird float gently away, when Lup's lookalike, Taako, knocks on the glass. Angus flips over and ducks beneath the water to see what it is Taako wants. He is something of an unknown, he isn't around often, and when he does come he puts a lot of effort into appearing disinterested with whatever is going on.

Now, though, Taako is standing at the clear wall with another stranger beside him. The new man is dark skinned, like Lucretia, and he is wearing dark clothing too.

_Seaweed!_ Taako says eagerly.

_...seaweed._ Angus replies, and Taako smiles widely. One day, Angus hopes that he will be able to understand the Land-Walkers, but interactions like this don't bode well for that.

A moment later, Magnus and Lup appear at the window. They say seaweed to Angus as well and he replies, because they always seem to like it when he does. Then they are speaking to the new stranger, motioning to Angus and then each other.

Curious, Angus dips under the water and pulls himself over to them. He doesn't come up right at the wall, even though he knows there is no way for anyone to get through the invisible barrier. The new stranger is watching him with an unreadable expression, but Angus thinks there might be a considering edge to it.

He considers the stranger right back. Angus might be the lowest in the pod, but he is still above a stranger. He looks to Lup.

“ _Lucas?”_ He signs. He isn't sure he is going to put up with another Land-Walker who is as rude as Lucas.

She laughs and signs back. “ _No, no Lucas.”_ She points to the man and makes a new sign, saying his name as she does. “ _Kravitz.”_

“ _Kravitz.”_ Angus repreats.

The stranger, Kravitz, turns to Lup and they talk for a moment, then Lup shows him Angus' name sign. Kravitz repeats it back, a couple times until Lup apparently decides that he's gotten it down.

“ _Seaweed, Angus.”_ Kravitz says.

Not him too.

“ _Seaweed, Kravitz.”_

Lup leads Kravitz and Taako into Angus' enclosure and Magnus closes the door behind them. Lup and Magnus spend a lot of time talking to Kravitz, and none of it seems to be anything that they really need to be in his area for so he really wishes that they would leave. He doesn't really like dealing with strangers.

The more he watches this stranger, and the more he watches Lup and Magnus' reactions to him, the more uncertain he is. They're nervous, they keep glancing to Kravitz while they talk, and to each other. They're acting like Kravitz is the envoy of a larger pod, and that can't be good news.

Large pods are always looking for more territory, and they don't care who has that territory before them. They usually allow smaller pods the chance to submit and run before they take the territory, but sometimes they just sweep in and kill everyone. The fact that they have sent an envoy means that they're at least giving Angus' new pod a chance to leave though.

Eventually, Lup calls Angus forward, to the beach where the envoy is waiting. Reluctantly, Angus slips under the water and pulls his way across to them. He doesn't pull himself onto the ledge though, He braces himself on his arms at the edge of the water, ready to duck back beneath if the envoy seems angry.

Kravitz doesn't seem angry yet, though. He crouches on the stone beach and looks at Angus again. There is still that measuring, evaluating feel to his gaze, but it doesn't seem challenging. It almost seems benevolent, like an elder checking over a lost pup.

Angus vocalizes a low trill of submssion/uncertainty and looks to Lup and Magnus. They only smile, though, which isn't really all that helpful. Lup, at least, joins Kravitz on the ground and signs.

“ _Kravitz yes.”_

Angus tilts his head. Their language is still very limited, despite the continuing efforts on all their parts. He wants to ask for clarification, but doing so would mean that he would have to get out of the water. He's not really sure he wants to do that.

He _is_ curious though, and Kravitz hasn't made any aggressive moves. Slowly, Angus pulls himself up onto the stone beach, watching the envoy carefully. He keeps his tail in the water, though, because if this is an envoy from a larger pod looking to move into their territory, they can't afford to show any weakness.

Kravitz only smiles at him though, and Lup signs _“Thank you”_ so he must have done something right.

“ _Puzzle?”_ Lup asks, reaching into her bag and pulling out Angus' favorite type of puzzle. It is a cube made of multicolored squares that he must arrange back into their proper groups. He and Barry can spend hours passing it back and forth, but Lup and Magnus never want to join this game.

Angus makes a happy chirp at Lup and reaches for the puzzle. She hands it to him and he mixes the colors. After that it is a simple matter of twisting the squares back into proper order. It only takes him a few minutes to finish and then he is at something of an impasse.

Lup and Magnus never want to play with the color cube, and Barry isn't here. The only person he could pass the puzzle to is the envoy. Angus sets the cube down and slides it across the stone instead of handing it to him. He isn't going to put himself any closer to the envoy than he has to.

Some of the more violent pods like to show just how strong they are by killing the pups of rival pods, and even though Angus is on the older side of puphood, he is still small. The envoy takes the cube and examines it for a few moments, talking to Lup. She and Magnus both answer proudly and Lup holds her hand out for him to slap.

He does, because she pretends to be sad if he doesn't.

Kravitz mixes up the puzzle again and then slides it back to Angus.

Well, alright then. Angus solves it and passes it again. He wishes Barry were here, it was more fun to race against someone than it was to just finish the puzzle over and over. He doesn't set it aside when Kravitz hands it back though. He's still an envoy, even if he seems to be one of the reasonable ones. He keeps talking to Lup and Magnus while Angus solves the puzzle again and again.

Eventually, they finish talking though and Kravitz says “ _Seaweed, Agnes”_

“ _Seaweed, Kravitz.”_ Angus replies, ignoring the mispronunciation. If that is the worst this envoy is going to do, he'll take it. Lup and Taako lead Kravitz back through the door after that, leaving Magnus behind. Magnus talks to him for a bit, but soon he leaves as well.

He expects this to be the last he sees of Kavitz, he expects there to be a great flurry to escape the territory before the new pod arrives. Instead, everyone seems to relax, Lup's smiles come more easily. Barry focuses more on the puzzles instead of his own thoughts.

Then Kravitz comes back. He sits with Lup and Angus while they work on new words, he stops by when Magnus brings Angus a new bird, he takes a turn when Barry brings simpler puzzles. Just when he thought he was starting to understand the Land-Walkers, they give him this.

Overall though, Kravitz isn't too bad to be around, once Angus accepts that he isn't an envoy from a larger pod looking to move into their territory. He picks up on signs quickly and one day he brings little cards with more words on them. Angus' language improves by leaps and bounds under his teaching and before too long he forgets he was even afraid of Kravitz in the first place.

***

“ _It isn't permanent.”_ Magnus tells him as he looks down at the new tail, sitting there waiting for him to put it on. “ _It won't replace your old tail, but it will let you swim normally again.”_

“ _It's perfect.”_ Angus says, stroking his finger reverently over the smooth surface.

“ _Wanna try it on?”_

He swims for hours, he leaps out of the water and trills sheer joy to the sound of Magnus' laughter. The others applaud a high twisting leap and Lup calls for him to do a flip.

His old tail isn't like his old one, and his new pod is different too, but Angus doesn't think that he would go back if he had the choice.

 


End file.
